shieldofrohan | marriage bed | for awordandablow

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marriage bed | for awordandablow

And so it is done, and all is done, and she does not know how to feel.

It is not that she mislikes Mercutio. She likes Mercutio very much, in fact; likes her more the more she has seen, and would gladly count her a friend. And while she is, perhaps, not quite so highly-born as Éowyn had hoped for, nobody less than a King could meet that mark.

No, the trouble is deeper, for marriage is an exile, and Éowyn cannot help but feel that she should not have allowed herself to be exiled. Not even into bright smiles and ready wit, and not even at the cost of the alliance it has brokered. She should be home, and holding fast to cold duty and colder loneliness, and she should not have allowed herself to be sent away, no matter how she loathed the cage that Edoras has become. Her mind is constantly drawn back northwards, to the Mark and its King, to all that is uncertain and all that has now been put from her reach.

It has been apparent all day, that distance and that graveness, though she has answered no questions on the subject and denied it entirely. She has taken no joy in the feasting and festivity, nor in the strange rites of marriage. She has retreated within herself, rather, become once again the graven image of a noblewoman, graceful and unimpeachable and distant.

It is only now, at the doorway of her wedding chamber, that she seems to find herself back in the immediate: back in Verona, back in this summer's evening, clad in embroidered green silk and with her hair a shining cloak around her shoulders. At the doorway, and with - she finds, on reflection - no idea at all what lies beyond.

She had expected to be married to a man, and she has at least some grasp on what that would entail. Here, she does not know at all what is expected, or how they will determine when it is done, or whether there will somehow still be blood on the sheets come morning. She has come this far, for a wonder, without considering the next steps, and now they are before her, and her fears about home are replaced by a fear much more immediate - that, in her ignorance, she will be embarrassed.

(And that it will be less than she hopes, and that it will be nothing at all. That she will gain no pleasure, despite her hopes, and be trapped to follow no other. That she will be inadequate to the task, and see Mercutio stray, and be humiliated by it. There are so many ways that this could go badly, and rob her of what makes this whole matter bearable.)

Lady Éowyn - once of Edoras, now, she supposes, of Verona - takes a deep breath and puts her hand to the door, stepping inside. As she does so, she looks at her bride, and that cold mask of distance has cracked, for a moment showing the uncertainty beneath.

"Well. So we are wedded, then." She can think, in the moment, of nothing more useful to say.

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From the first moment Escalus proposed this match, Mercutio thought it a farce. Not that Éowyn is not lovely, nor that Mercutio has not grown to like her well. The lady is brave, her mind sharp as a sword's point; she may be serious in court, but Mercutio saw enough of her laughter on the road to Verona to know that she is not dour.

Or wasn't. Truth be told, Mercutio has not been much of her wonted humour of late. Arranging this wedding has required her attendance at more council meetings than ever before, and curtailed her life with her friends in the city. This, she has no doubt, was Escalus' goal: to hood and jess her with a wife, as if marriage will turn her towards the serious business of governance.

Marriage. Faugh! It has made her snappish with her kinsmen and sullen with others. Éowyn could be forgiven for thinking that Mercutio's affection towards her waned with the banns.

The idea that Éowyn might be as unhappy about the situation didn't truly penetrate Mercutio's thoughts until a few days before the wedding. By then, it was much too late to cry off, and neither of them had much time for conversation. Mercutio had -- has -- no idea what to say, in any case. They are both duty-bound to this. Éowyn seems more used to that yoke than Mercutio is, but that doesn't mean she likes it any better. And now are they to pull in it together?

The room is a good size, on a middle floor of the Prince's palace. A balcony at the end of the room overlooks the Adige, its doors open to let in the night air; a good-sized bed is set with its head against the adjoining wall. Mercutio is slouched in a chair by the room's fireplace when Éowyn opens the door, a cup of wine in hand and the fine doublet she wore for the ceremony tossed onto the floor, leaving her in tunic, breeches, and hose.

She looks up from the fire at the sound of the door and shoots to her feet.

"My lady."

Uhhhhh.

(Marry, but she's beautiful.)

Mercutio takes a deep breath and puts on a rueful smile, toasting her wife with the wine.

"Wedded we are. A fine affair, was it not? May the saints of Italia and the gods of the Mark have pity on us."

"The Mark gives its worship to the Huntsman," Éowyn remarks drily, "and pity befits a hunter ill." Thinking, as she says it, Are you to be pitied, then? - and it is not fair that her pride should be so readily pricked, when she has been so ambivalent about the matter herself, but it rankles, all the same. What have you lost, my lady, that is so much more than you have gained?

She sighs, closing the door behind her and slipping off her shoes. "It was a fine affair, and I am glad that it is over. Pour me a cup, as you have the wine?"

Another thing: she had expected to be the one pouring wine, in this situation, the dutiful bride to a handsome groom. Well, Mercutio is handsome, but she is not quite a groom, and if there is one virtue to that, it is that the ground between them is altogether more even. The thought does give Éowyn a little strength, considering that at the very least, this night need not be one of submission.

She lingers a moment by the door, hesitating despite herself, before crossing to join Mercutio by the fire. There is that crack in her armour again, an uncertain young woman peering through the stone-faced princess.

"Is it so piteous a thing, to be married?"

"With a good will."

She moves to retrieve another cup. Her gait is still a touch stilted, though the wounds they both sustained on the ride from the border have closed and scarred. That is, Mercutio assumes they've scarred on Éowyn. Perhaps the lady's ability as a healer means her skin is unmarred.

"Oh, the songs will say you nay," she continues, "yet those same troubadours that sing 'em have much to say on the subject of young lovers in May, who have said no vows before a priest. Those songs sound much the merrier than lays of husbands and wives."

Éowyn is quiet a moment, taking the cup in both her hands but not drinking. She considers her bride afresh: lithely easy, in her mannish clothes, with sword-belt and hair cut short, speaking of lovers in May as though such things were the free preserve of a noble maid. Speaking so often of merriment, and so little of duty. There, again, is that old pang of jealousy, that sense of a life she might have had, in some other world. There is a kind of mockery for a woman who has found herself so often a prisoner of her sex to be married to a woman who cares for its strictures not at all.

"You are a strange woman," she says at last, with more admiration than distaste, and smiles for the first time all day. "And still merrier than songs would promise, in marriage or in love."

The songs she favours, at least; but then, she has never sung the merriest songs.

"So it's been said."

Mercutio lifts her cup to drink, but pauses, considering Éowyn over the rim in turn. When did she last see her smile? Not once in all this day of ceremony and celebration, even when Mercutio herself plastered on some semblance of her usual jollity for her cousin's sake.

"... I think," she continues, slowly, "that I must beg your pardon, my lady. If I make merry with these matters, it comes of my nature. I would not have you think I take this -- you -- as no more weighty than a jest or a song."

"I do not think it," Éowyn says, after a moment long enough to consider whether that is true. It is difficult to know what to make of Mercutio, who is so unlike anyone she has met before (for even the merriest of the Rohirrim are tempered by the grim sincerity of their condition), but there must be some weight beneath the levity. And in the end, whatever else may be at play, they saved one another's lives on the road. That must count for something, even for the unserious.

The reminder of it settles something within her, too, reminding her that if there is anyone she can trust in this new land, it is the woman across from her. Her hand rests for a moment against her side, where the cut has settled into a still-livid scar that aches at times, a further reminder. They are tied by blood, as well as marriage. That counts for something, too.

"I will give you my pardon, if you will give me yours. If you make too merry, then I am too solemn, and it comes to the same end, in a way." She sets down her cup, pushing her hair back, and meets Mercutio's eyes. "I am... not wholly glad to be married into exile. But I am glad it is you." I think.

And like that, the smile comes back to Mercutio's face, bright as the first flash of sun off the water. She puts down her own cup and holds out her hands to Éowyn, palms up -- an unconscious echo of the way they took hands earlier during their vows.

"And here I thought thee wise, lady! Well, well, take my pardon, and my merriment withal. If I cannot make thy exile a pleasure, I would that it be gentle, at least."

Éowyn's own smile is more guarded and less bright, but still true. There is a hint of sly humour in it, too, as she mirrors Mercutio: her hands find her wife's, resting light against their warmth.

"How strange, that you should think I wish for gentleness." Ease and gentleness are not in her nature, and they sit strangely in the world. It has been one of the strangest things in coming here, in truth - to find that, for all its politicking, there is space for gentle ease in Verona, or at least to pretend at it. It is a jarring change from her life in Rohan, which has only ever existed beneath the growing shadow of doom.

(The fact that she is in neither a Capulet nor a Montague household may, in fairness, make matters less fraught.)

Mercutio's eyebrows go up. She runs her thumbs over Éowyn's knuckles, leaning in a little, conspiratorially.

"Wouldst thou not have a gentle lay, my soldier? I know thee to revel in a tussle, but variety is the spice of life."

The danger of Éowyn's paleness is this: when she flushes, it is visible too readily, and impossible to hide. She does not draw away, though, and her fingers curl around Mercutio's, her tone lowering in habituated secrecy, as though this were not the most justified place and time to speak of such things.

"I cannot say what I would have, knowing neither. But when I have dreamed of love, it has rarely been gentle." She bites her lip, trying not to blush more deeply, because this is something she has never spoken of aloud. Who would she have said such things to? What ladies-maid or noble vassal could she confide in, what friend admit to - admit even that she had dreamed of anything so base, much less its details? "I have never wished to be treated as a maiden, delicate and fair, to be tenderly touched on satin sheets. I am a warrior, and I would sooner be loved as one; and in my dreams I have tussled and strained beneath an open sky, and triumphed or been overcome, and treated as gently as warriors treat one another upon the road. And that is all; a score of years have I played gentle maid and treated with soft words and delicacy, and variety is all that I seek, but it will not be found in gentleness."

Oh. Oh, is it even so.

As Éowyn speaks, and her cheeks redden, Mercutio feels her own blood rising, her smile growing wider in unbelieving delight. She squeezes Éowyn's hands, then slides one up Éowyn's arm to grip her by the back of the neck, under that fall of fine fair hair.

"Oh, thou art then a war-horse, Éowyn -- is it not so? No cooing turtledove. Wilt thou be bested by me, then, within our wedding bed, my darling mare, my love?"

The touch is not so much more intimate than others she has felt, but it is the context that makes all the difference: and Mercutio's hand feels hot against the nape of Éowyn's neck, setting the fine hair there to prickling. It is real, now, the deed they are here to do. It is real, and it is writ clear in Mercutio's smile, the look in her eyes as they lock gazes.

"Only once," she says at last, and her smile is almost a match to Mercutio's, with a slyness that rarely reaches the surface. "But you will find me an able learner, I think; and I do not suffer myself to be bested twice."

Mercutio bursts out laughing, bouncing on her toes -- almost puppyish in her sudden excitement. "Nay, I would never think it!"

She can't hold back anymore. (For some people it would be "they don't want to hold back anymore"; for Mercutio, it's can't.) Tightening her grip on Éowyn's nape, she leans in and kisses her. She isn't thinking of whether Éowyn may be less experienced in these matters than she is, and as a result the kiss is hard and hungry, a challenge as much as anything else.

A challenge is, in many ways, all that Éowyn has ever sought, and this is a sweeter challenge than most. She is taken by surprise - she has, after all, never been kissed in such a way before at all, and it makes her slow to react - but as soon as she has caught her footing, she answers so enthusiastically that there is a brief, ugly bruising of teeth and lip, all else forgotten in favour of the crush of mouth on mouth. Her lips part without thought, and her hand comes up to card through Mercutio's short hair, finding purchase there to hold their faces together.

She has held herself back countless times - not only from Mercutio, although the thought has occurred, but from every such impulse. She has been graceful and restrained all her life, and she had known that she wished to be kissed, but only now is she fully aware of just how much hunger has built up over the years: it seems to her that she could devour her bride, consume her with the force of that need. The second time her teeth graze Mercutio's lip, it is not an accident.

When Mercutio pulls back to catch a breath, she licks her lower lip, checking to see if they've managed to split it. No blood. Ah, well, the sun won't rise for hours. They have time.

Smiling, she wraps her free arm around Éowyn's waist to pull her close, and seeks to maneuver one of her thighs to press against her -- not entirely between her legs, in light of her skirts, but enough to give Éowyn something to feel.

"Come to the bed," she murmurs. "Or shall I have thee on the floor?" She ducks her head to mouth under the corner of Éowyn's jaw, lips, then tongue, then teeth, then lips again.

A small gasp escapes Éowyn at the press of Mercutio's thigh: not so much from the physical pleasure of it, which is so muffled under skirt and shift and petticoat as to be almost entirely absent, but from what it signifies. There is an intimacy in it, without gentleness: there is a promise of things to come.

Things like the graze of lips and teeth against where her pulse beats close to the surface. She tilts her head without thinking, to grant Mercutio better access, her finger curling against the other woman's scalp. The thought of letting things progress naturally, of collapsing together here and now, onto the floor in a tangle of limbs and pleasure... it is tempting, and she almost says so, before the healing wound in her side twinges as if to remind her why it is a bad idea.

Bed, then. She cannot quite bear to draw away from Mercutio's mouth, which is so warm and sweet and sharp against her neck; but she does take a step towards the bed, drawing her wife with her.

There's an answer, then. Mercutio shivers at the scrape of fingers against her scalp. She'd like to get this gown off her bride, and her tunic and hose off herself, and feel those fingers against the rest of her skin, and with this urgency in mind she ducks down to loop an arm under Éowyn's knees.

"Up with thee, love," she says with a grin, lifting Éowyn, stepping towards the bed--

--And promptly staggering to put her back down with an oath, as her bad leg twinges dangerously. "God's me!"

cool, cool cool cool, very smooth, she's going to walk into the river and straight out to sea, don't mind her

Éowyn cannot help it: she laughs, and at once feels bad for laughing. But how can she help but laugh, at such a show? Stumbling to regain her footing, half-stifling her smile, she grasps Mercutio's arm, and there is genuine concern there as well as amusement.

"Another time, perhaps," she suggests, only a little sardonically, "when we are both whole and hale again?" And, to soften the blow, she leans in to kiss Mercutio again, her hand tracing down to find her bride's.

"I ought to be hale enough," Mercutio grumbles between kisses, "to carry a sweet bit o' nothing to bed!"

But she twines her fingers with Éowyn's, and tugs her over to the bed -- both of them on their feet. There, she catches Éowyn by the waist again, and in a movement more reminiscent of her usual grace, falls back onto the bed, pulling Éowyn down atop her. As soon as Éowyn lands, Mercutio's hands are busy gathering fistfuls of her skirts and pushing them out of the way, searching for the ties or loops of any undergarments.

"Am I nothing, then?" Her affront is not altogether feigned; being ignorant of any other meaning, it is easy to take the comment amiss. She straddles Mercutio's hips, sitting up with an arched eyebrow. "Do not wrong me, lady, I am hale enough to make myself harder to handle."

But she does not particularly want to, at this moment. Nor, while she is a little unsure of what was meant, does she genuinely think the comment was intended as a dismissive one. As Mercutio's hands work at her skirts, baring fair, toned thighs, Éowyn's own hands go to her embroidered belt, making quick work of first that and then the brooches at her shoulders, so that the heavily embroidered silk falls away and leaves her in her underdress and petticoat.

"Come," she remarks, leaning over to set the brooches down on the nearest surface, "tell me you would fain have me lighter, and less of me to carry; and I will shed a little more weight, if you ask."

Mercutio's breath catches pleasantly when Éowyn's weight settles atop her, making heat throb between her legs. It catches again when the dress finally falls away, and she can begin to see Éowyn's body, limned with firelight. Beneath her own tunic, her nipples harden.

"Oh, my lady, mistake me not." Her hands land on Éowyn's thighs, warm and nimble, and start to slide up them. "Thou and I have that thing which is like nothing else i'th'world."

Her thumb rubs over a spot high on the inside of Éowyn's thigh before her fingers creep a little higher, seeking to cup where she's warm and soft and -- Mercutio hopes -- wet.

"I'll not ask thee for mercy, for I know thou wouldst scoff." She grins up at her. "But I'll beg for thy lightness, aye, the better to bear thee up."

Now it is Éowyn who gasps, her breath catching sharply at the warmth of another's hand where she is joined. There is wetness there, certainly, and a furnace-heat that seems to gather higher by the moment. She bites her lip, lifting her hips a little from where she straddles Mercutio, inviting further touch.

That thing, that no-thing. She understands it now, and smiles at it, leaning in to bring their faces closer as she begins to unlace the sides of her shift. "Thou speak'st too much in riddles, lady. Hast thou been told so?"

She might hesitate more for a husband than a wife. But as she has just been reminded, they are of a kind, and what does one woman have to hide from another? She does not linger on her fastenings, loosening them as much as is needed to let the fine linen hang lighter on her lean form, and then settles back to haul it off over her head.

Beneath, she is slender and fine-boned, her breasts small and taut, her arms visibly muscled. The half-healed scar of their battle, still livid against her pale skin, stands in a rill an inch or two above the tied waistband of her petticoat, the only fault marring her skin.

"Many a time," she replies cheerfully. Her fingers creep a little further, one sliding between the folds of Éowyan's cunt, and her palm settles on the mound, so that Éowyn's clit presses against it. Not too hard, yet -- for all that Éowyn is no delicate flower, and seems to know her own mind for pleasure, Mercutio wants to feel her out for a moment. As it were.

And she wants to take a moment to admire her, too. The look on Mercutio's face when Éowyn strips off her shift and sits above her, bare, is one of naked lust and no little delight. Mercutio disentangles her other hand from beneath Éowyn's petticoat and reaches up to palm one of her breasts, rolling the nipple under her thumb.

It is not a look she has often seen, that open desire; and where she has seen it before, it has been unwanted and the weight of it has made her skin crawl. In this moment, on the face of her wife, she finds she is hungry for it. It thrills her, to be looked at with such naked want. She has always known herself to be fair, but she knows it in a new way, seeing how Mercutio's eyes both dance and darken.

Then again, it is not only the look that thrills her. Mercutio's hands are warm and rough and gentle, and they roam without any thought of modesty, just as she would have expected. She lets out a soft moue, pressing forward into the hand on her breast, and her breath catches again as that movement shifts her against the lower touch. For a moment, she lets her eyes flutter closed, enjoying the intensity of touch more deeply.

When she opens them, they are less grey than black. She lets out a long, uneven breath, and her hands go to Mercutio's doublet, seeking out fastenings.

She is free to undo the doublet, but God in heaven, Mercutio is loath to stop touching her to actually take off the garment. The sounds of her, the way she moves, the look on her face when she feels something she enjoys -- Mercutio could feast on it all night and into tomorrow and still want more.

Feasting, yes. That seems like a good idea. She lies still long enough for Éowyn to undo her doublet, taking advantage of the time to keep massaging between her wife's legs, and revel in the wetness coating her fingers. Once all is unfastened, though, she moves: one (slick) hand to Éowyn's hip, under her petticoat, the other up under her arm to the back of her shoulder, and a twist of hips to roll them both across the bed, flipping their positions. It isn't exactly a wrestler's move, but close.

Mercutio aims to end up with Éowyn on her back, with those long strong legs around Mercutio's hips. Once there, she braces herself with one hand so she can grin down at Éowyn.

"There, that's better. Not too heavy for thee, I wager."

It isn't exactly a wrestler's move, and if Éowyn wanted to keep her seat, she thinks there is a good chance that she could push back against it. She does not try, and lets herself be rolled over with only a token resistance, grunting softly as she is pushed over onto her back. This once, as she had said, she will let herself be bested.

"You are the lightest that ever pinned me," she says, truthfully enough, and smiles. She will return in time to her doubts and fears, to thoughts of what this will all lead to - but for now, she is slick and wet beneath the rumpled folds of her petticoat, and her bare skin shivers with anticipation, and Mercutio's smile is an intoxicating view. There is no time for melancholy, just at the moment. "And now that you have?"

As she speaks, her hand comes up almost unconsciously, seeking out the hem of Mercutio's shirt, trying to find her way under it to feel the skin beneath.

On impulse, Mercutio catches her by the wrist and shifts forward, pinning Éowyn's hand above her head.

"Oh, where to begin my plunder? With the bounty of thy breasts?" She leans down to ghost her lips against Éowyn's. "Or shall I feed upon thy lips?"

Her other hand slides up Éowyn's thigh, back to its earlier home. She uses her fingers to spread the folds of Éowyn's cunt, finding her clit with her thumb this time.

"But sweeter nectar there is," she continues, in a rough, husking breath, "to drink my fill. Where wouldst thou feel my mouth first, my dear? For I'll have all of thee in time."

The grip on her wrist is firm, and even as she pushes back experimentally against it, Éowyn finds that she does not mind it: finds, in fact, that it thrills her unexpectedly. She leans up against that grip, chasing Mercutio's too-brief kiss, her lips parted and her colour high; and at the press of Mercutio's thumb, groans aloud in pleasure and want. It is a new feeling, this; a feeling that penetrates the shadow and gloom, and that she would gladly taste more of.

Taste. It takes her a moment to understand what the taste is that Mercutio speaks of - riddles again, she thinks, with wry frustration - and a moment more to imagine it. All else, she thinks, she could imagine: but that has never occurred to her before, and she bites her lip, looking up at the face hovering so close above hers, and wonders.

"Begin at the beginning," she decides at last, aloud; "kiss me first, and follow where your thirst leads, until you drink your fill."

"A pretty answer from a pretty maid."

And she's pleased to do as she's bid. Mercutio closes the distance between their lips in another crushing kiss; more of her weight settles onto Éowyn, clothed chest against bare skin, fingers tightening on Éowyn's wrist. She shifts her hand so that her palm is cupping Éowyn's mound again, in a position better suited for rhythmic pressing and grinding.

Here she intends to stay, until she gets at least a few more of those groans out of Éowyn. Saints above, but it's a lovely sound, artless and free.

Actions have always suited Éowyn better than words, and answers better than prettiness. She leans up into the kiss and Mercutio's weight above her, wondering at the press of leather and linen against naked flesh, wondering more at the heat of her bride's mouth. Her tongue thrusts into Mercutio's mouth eagerly, all uncertainty of method gone in favour of exploration, and, oh! how sweet it is, how sweet the clumsiness of kissing and how much sweeter the press of the hand between her legs.

She squirms against the pressure and the pleasure it brings, moaning into Mercutio's mouth, shifting to better press her hips up into the other woman's hand, to find where that press is sweetest. The wound in her belly aches, but she pays it no mind: this is far more important. She has one hand free still, and it has found its way once more into the other woman's short-cut hair, fingers tightening against her scalp.

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marriage bed | for awordandablow

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éowyn like listen i am HORNY i am KINKY i am READY TO LIVE MY TRUTH

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